<p>The charges of domestic violence against former Text Longhorns men's basketball coach Chris Beard have been dropped by a Texas prosecutor, partly because of the victim's wishes not to prosecute. Jose Garza, District Attorney&nbsp;in Travis county, known for handling domestic abuse cases with utmost sincerity, dropped the charges on Wednesday, respecting the wishes of Randi Trew, Beard's fiance. The DA's office also observed that the charges of suffocation-strangulation-family violence could not be proved without a reasonable doubt. Beard was arrested on December 12 after Trew called 911 and informed officers about the abuse. She, however, later said that she never wished for Beard to be prosecuted.</p>

<p>Perry Minton, Beard's attorney, said, "everyone knows that Coach Beard has maintained his absolute innocence since the moment he was arrested.''. "Additionally, this district attorney has a well-earned reputation for being very tough regarding domestic violence cases. The fact that Mr. Garza's review resulted in this determination so quickly says a lot. We are very pleased.''&nbsp;</p>

<p><strong>Also Read:</strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/sports/jerry-jarrett-passes-away-at-80-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-wrestling-legend-562552">Jerry Jarrett passes away at 80: All you need to know about the Wrestling legend</a></p>

<p>The police affidavit filed in support of Beard's arrest mentioned various signs of altercation including bite marks on Trew's arms and abrasions on her face and leg. A later statement, however, did not mention why she called 911 or the injuries described in the police report. According to the affidavit, Trew initially told police "he choked me, bit me, bruises all over my leg, throwing me around and going nuts.''</p>

<p><strong>Read More:</strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/sports/basketball-great-michael-jordan-to-make-record-donation-of-10-million-to-nonprofit-562527">Basketball great Michael Jordan to make record donation of $10 million to nonprofit</a></p>

<p>After his arrest, Beard was suspended without pay by the Longhorns. He was subsequently fired from the job on January 5 after Texas officials told Beard's attorney that he is únfit'to lead the program. On Wednesday though, A University of Texas spokesperson declined to comment on the case.</p>

<p>Beard has five years left on a guaranteed seven-year contract. Although a provision in the contract states that he could be fired if was charged with a felony or behaviour which is unbecoming of his position or which reflected poorly on the university.</p>

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The charges of domestic violence against former Text Longhorns men's basketball coach Chris Beard have been dropped by a Texas prosecutor, partly because of the victim's wishes not to prosecute.

The charges of domestic violence against former Text Longhorns men's basketball coach Chris Beard have been dropped by a Texas prosecutor, partly because of the victim's wishes not to prosecute. Jose Garza, District Attorney in Travis county, known for handling domestic abuse cases with utmost sincerity, dropped the charges on Wednesday, respecting the wishes of Randi Trew, Beard's fiance. The DA's office also observed that the charges of suffocation-strangulation-family violence could not be proved without a reasonable doubt. Beard was arrested on December 12 after Trew called 911 and informed officers about the abuse. She, however, later said that she never wished for Beard to be prosecuted. Perry Minton, Beard's attorney, said, "everyone knows that Coach Beard has maintained his absolute innocence since the moment he was arrested.''. "Additionally, this district attorney has a well-earned reputation for being very tough regarding domestic violence cases. The fact that Mr. Garza's review resulted in this determination so quickly says a lot. We are very pleased.'' Also Read: Jerry Jarrett passes away at 80: All you need to know about the Wrestling legend The police affidavit filed in support of Beard's arrest mentioned various signs of altercation including bite marks on Trew's arms and abrasions on her face and leg. A later statement, however, did not mention why she called 911 or the injuries described in the police report. According to the affidavit, Trew initially told police "he choked me, bit me, bruises all over my leg, throwing me around and going nuts.'' Read More: Basketball great Michael Jordan to make record donation of $10 million to nonprofit After his arrest, Beard was suspended without pay by the Longhorns. He was subsequently fired from the job on January 5 after Texas officials told Beard's attorney that he is únfit'to lead the program. On Wednesday though, A University of Texas spokesperson declined to comment on the case. Beard has five years left on a guaranteed seven-year contract. Although a provision in the contract states that he could be fired if was charged with a felony or behaviour which is unbecoming of his position or which reflected poorly on the university. WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

College Basketball: Domestic violence case against ex-Longhorns coach Chris Beard dropped by Texas DA

Gravitas | The U.S. says military cooperation with the Taliban is 'possible'. The same US designates Taliban faction Haqqani Network as terrorists. What is the US surrendering to recruit Taliban in the war on terror? WION's Palki Sharma tells you.

Gravitas: What is the cost of talking to the Taliban?

<p>Political turmoil roils across the United States as the ultra-right ascends to power, symbolised by Donald Trump. The most dynamic and innovative opposition to the ultra-right has been led by the Reverend William J. Barber II, longtime pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina.</p>

<p>The ultra-right began its ascent in North Carolina when the Republicans took control of the State Legislature in 2011. They then redistricted the state in such a way as to guarantee them a legislative majority regardless of the votes, so that the next year, 2012, they won 9 of the 13 seats up for reelection even though Democrats won 51 per cent of the votes.</p>

<p>That strategy gave them control of both houses of the Legislature and the governor&rsquo;s office, which allowed them to implement a radical right-wing agenda: cut taxes on the rich, raising taxes on the middle class, and cutting social programs.</p>

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<p>Author Jeffrey Bortz with Reverend William J. Barber (Others)</p>
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<p>To make the rich richer, they eliminated the state&rsquo;s three-tier progressive income tax, substituting instead a flat-tax in which the poor pay the same rate as the state&rsquo;s wealthiest citizens. Furthermore, they eliminated the estate tax, which applied only to the wealthy. To pay for the tax cuts, they blocked Medic-aid expansion, leaving 500,000 North Carolinians without health care.</p>

<p>They cut unemployment benefits, which were already meagre, to begin with, and slashed spending on public education, including the university system. They also eliminated many environmental protections. Then to prevent being thrown out of the office, they implemented voter suppression, reducing the number of early voting days, eliminating same-day voter registration and requiring an ID to vote, measures designed to reduce the electoral participation of students, the poor, and minorities, particularly African Americans.</p>

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<p>Barber, President of North Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 2005, was outraged at the assault on the poor, on African Americans, on the middle class, and particularly at the restrictions to democracy. Measured against the many Biblical injunctions to help the poor and the powerless - James 2:15-16, &quot;Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and don&rsquo;t have enough to eat. What good is there in your saying to them, &quot;God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!&quot; &ndash; if you don&rsquo;t give them the necessities of life?&rdquo;</p>

<p>He believed that the Republican legislature was dragging North Carolina down an immoral path, and so he launched a moral crusade. On Monday, April 29, 2013, he led a protest at the State Legislature, which continued the following Mondays. It was his insight that protesters, to be effective, had to be willing to confront immoral laws with a moral challenge to the law, so that they occupied the Legislative building, where they were arrested, including the Rev Barber.</p>

<p>By the end of the summer, more than 900 Moral Mondayers had been arrested, the Rev Barber repeatedly. As Barber said, &quot;Some issues are not about left and right, Republican and Democrat &ndash; they&rsquo;re about our deepest moral values&quot;. Following through summer after summer, the 2017 Moral Monday gathering at the State Capitol assembled 80,000 protesters.</p>

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<h5>The state cutbacks to the university budget were hurting students, faculty, university employees, and the quality of public education.</h5>
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<p>Teaching at Appalachian State University in the mountainous far northwestern corner of North Carolina, I was well aware of how state cutbacks to the university budget were hurting students, faculty, university employees, and the quality of public education, so when I heard of the Moral Monday protests in the summer of 2013, I was intrigued. With some friends, we trekked the 200 miles from Boone, NC, to Raleigh, the state capital, where we participated in that Monday&rsquo;s protest.</p>

<p>As usual, before the occupation of the legislative building, Barber gave a speech to the assembled crowd, and as I listened, I realised that he is really quite brilliant, as well as courageous and passionate. We were more than impressed.</p>

<p>So the five of us - Greg, Sheila, Nancy and Tim - decided to bring Barber to campus to talk to the university community, an invitation he graciously accepted. He came In October and presented a spellbinding moral criticism of the Legislature, along with a moral vision for a better North Carolina.</p>

<p>I had an opportunity to have dinner with him during the visit and I was just as impressed by him as a person as well as I was by his leadership. Highly educated and intelligent, he was authentic, unassuming, natural, and down-to-earth, and with a keen sense of humour.</p>

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<h5>Rev Barber resigned his post as President of the North Carolina NAACP and has founded the Poor People&rsquo;s Campaign, following Martin Luther King&rsquo;s.</h5>
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<p>This is a man truly committed to his mission to elevate the poor. His talk was a great success, so we had him back to campus three years later, along with a Republican speaker, so that students could compare both visions of society. Once again, Barber gave an awesome presentation. This year the U.S. Supreme Court gave Barber a major victory, ratifying lower court decisions that ruled that the Republican Legislature had racially gerrymandered voting districts in such a way as to deprive African Americans of fair and Constitutional representation, the original source of his Moral Monday protests. The courts ordered new redistricting.</p>

<p>This year, Barber has decided to take his moral message to the rest of the country. He resigned his post as President of the North Carolina NAACP and has founded the Poor People&rsquo;s Campaign, following Martin Luther King&rsquo;s last major initiative just before his assassination in April 1968. That year, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, itself an organisation that grew out of the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott against racial segregation, planned a campaign to address economic injustice and to assemble &quot;a multiracial army of the poor,&quot; though King was murdered before it could take effect.</p>

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<h5>The goal is to establish chapters around the country who will engage in civil disobedience, as in Moral Monday, in order to bring about a &quot;moral revival across the United States&quot;.</h5>
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<p>Today Barber co-chairs the new organisation with the Rev Dr Liz Theoharis, a pastor from New York City. Their goal is to establish chapters around the country who will engage in civil disobedience, as in Moral Monday, in order to bring about a &quot;moral revival across the United States&quot;. Barber and Theoharis have already been to the Rio Grande in El Paso to share their goals with the undocumented families of the Texas-Mexico borderlands.</p>

<p>As in North Carolina, Barber is committed to bringing justice to those whom American society has left behind, to stand and march with them until America shares its wealth with the poor and the outcasts, much as Jesus shared his message of hope with the poor and outcasts of his time. That is the moral renewal that Barber sought and seeks.<br />
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Barber is committed to bringing justice to those whom American society has left behind, to stand and march with them until America shares its wealth with the poor and the outcasts, much as Jesus did.

Political turmoil roils across the United States as the ultra-right ascends to power, symbolised by Donald Trump. The most dynamic and innovative opposition to the ultra-right has been led by the Reverend William J. Barber II, longtime pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina. The ultra-right began its ascent in North Carolina when the Republicans took control of the State Legislature in 2011. They then redistricted the state in such a way as to guarantee them a legislative majority regardless of the votes, so that the next year, 2012, they won 9 of the 13 seats up for reelection even though Democrats won 51 per cent of the votes. That strategy gave them control of both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office, which allowed them to implement a radical right-wing agenda: cut taxes on the rich, raising taxes on the middle class, and cutting social programs. Author Jeffrey Bortz with Reverend William J. Barber (Others) × To make the rich richer, they eliminated the state’s three-tier progressive income tax, substituting instead a flat-tax in which the poor pay the same rate as the state’s wealthiest citizens. Furthermore, they eliminated the estate tax, which applied only to the wealthy. To pay for the tax cuts, they blocked Medic-aid expansion, leaving 500,000 North Carolinians without health care. They cut unemployment benefits, which were already meagre, to begin with, and slashed spending on public education, including the university system. They also eliminated many environmental protections. Then to prevent being thrown out of the office, they implemented voter suppression, reducing the number of early voting days, eliminating same-day voter registration and requiring an ID to vote, measures designed to reduce the electoral participation of students, the poor, and minorities, particularly African Americans. Rev Barber believed that the Republican legislature was dragging North Carolina down an immoral path, and so he launched a moral crusade. × Barber, President of North Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 2005, was outraged at the assault on the poor, on African Americans, on the middle class, and particularly at the restrictions to democracy. Measured against the many Biblical injunctions to help the poor and the powerless - James 2:15-16, "Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and don’t have enough to eat. What good is there in your saying to them, "God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!" – if you don’t give them the necessities of life?” He believed that the Republican legislature was dragging North Carolina down an immoral path, and so he launched a moral crusade. On Monday, April 29, 2013, he led a protest at the State Legislature, which continued the following Mondays. It was his insight that protesters, to be effective, had to be willing to confront immoral laws with a moral challenge to the law, so that they occupied the Legislative building, where they were arrested, including the Rev Barber. By the end of the summer, more than 900 Moral Mondayers had been arrested, the Rev Barber repeatedly. As Barber said, "Some issues are not about left and right, Republican and Democrat – they’re about our deepest moral values". Following through summer after summer, the 2017 Moral Monday gathering at the State Capitol assembled 80,000 protesters. The state cutbacks to the university budget were hurting students, faculty, university employees, and the quality of public education. × Teaching at Appalachian State University in the mountainous far northwestern corner of North Carolina, I was well aware of how state cutbacks to the university budget were hurting students, faculty, university employees, and the quality of public education, so when I heard of the Moral Monday protests in the summer of 2013, I was intrigued. With some friends, we trekked the 200 miles from Boone, NC, to Raleigh, the state capital, where we participated in that Monday’s protest. As usual, before the occupation of the legislative building, Barber gave a speech to the assembled crowd, and as I listened, I realised that he is really quite brilliant, as well as courageous and passionate. We were more than impressed. So the five of us - Greg, Sheila, Nancy and Tim - decided to bring Barber to campus to talk to the university community, an invitation he graciously accepted. He came In October and presented a spellbinding moral criticism of the Legislature, along with a moral vision for a better North Carolina. I had an opportunity to have dinner with him during the visit and I was just as impressed by him as a person as well as I was by his leadership. Highly educated and intelligent, he was authentic, unassuming, natural, and down-to-earth, and with a keen sense of humour. Rev Barber resigned his post as President of the North Carolina NAACP and has founded the Poor People’s Campaign, following Martin Luther King’s. × This is a man truly committed to his mission to elevate the poor. His talk was a great success, so we had him back to campus three years later, along with a Republican speaker, so that students could compare both visions of society. Once again, Barber gave an awesome presentation. This year the U.S. Supreme Court gave Barber a major victory, ratifying lower court decisions that ruled that the Republican Legislature had racially gerrymandered voting districts in such a way as to deprive African Americans of fair and Constitutional representation, the original source of his Moral Monday protests. The courts ordered new redistricting. This year, Barber has decided to take his moral message to the rest of the country. He resigned his post as President of the North Carolina NAACP and has founded the Poor People’s Campaign, following Martin Luther King’s last major initiative just before his assassination in April 1968. That year, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, itself an organisation that grew out of the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott against racial segregation, planned a campaign to address economic injustice and to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor," though King was murdered before it could take effect. The goal is to establish chapters around the country who will engage in civil disobedience, as in Moral Monday, in order to bring about a "moral revival across the United States". × Today Barber co-chairs the new organisation with the Rev Dr Liz Theoharis, a pastor from New York City. Their goal is to establish chapters around the country who will engage in civil disobedience, as in Moral Monday, in order to bring about a "moral revival across the United States". Barber and Theoharis have already been to the Rio Grande in El Paso to share their goals with the undocumented families of the Texas-Mexico borderlands. As in North Carolina, Barber is committed to bringing justice to those whom American society has left behind, to stand and march with them until America shares its wealth with the poor and the outcasts, much as Jesus shared his message of hope with the poor and outcasts of his time. That is the moral renewal that Barber sought and seeks.

Rev Barber leads a moral crusade for justice in the US

<p>Beginning with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, Spain laid claim to most of the New World, eventually consolidating its rule over much of South, Central, and North America. In the early 19th century, Mexico, Central America and South America acquired independence, leaving Cuba and Puerto Rico as the last of the Spanish colonies in the Americas. They remained Spanish colonies until the United States declared war in 1898. The U.S. victory over Spain made Puerto Rico a U.S. colony to date.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The U.S. military occupied Cuba until 1902, only leaving after the Platt Amendment allowed the U.S. to intervene when its interests were threatened. The U.S. reoccupied Cuba 1906-1909 and in 1912 to suppress Afro-Cuban protests against racial discrimination. America owned most of the production of Cuba&rsquo;s chief export, sugar, most of which was exported to the United States. Supported by the U.S., General Fulgencio Batista came to power in 1940 as president, then in 1952 through a military coup d&rsquo;etat in which he established himself as a U.S. supported dictator with close ties to the mafia.</p>

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<h5>Castro supported the Salvador Allende government in Chile which the CIA, under Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, set out to destroy</h5>
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<p>Fidel Castro Ruz was born in 1926, son of a somewhat wealthy Spanish (Galicia) immigrant and owner of a prosperous sugar plantation. As a young man, he studied at a Jesuit-run school, after which his father sent him to the University of Havana to study law, where he became radicalised. In 1948 he travelled to Bogota, Colombia, where he got caught up in the riots protesting the assassination of popular leftist, Jorge Gait&aacute;n.</p>

<p>Fidel began considering himself a revolutionary socialist, and after recruiting a rebel band among the poor in Santiago, on July 26, 1953, he led an attack on the Moncada army barracks, in an attempt to begin to topple the Batista dictatorship. The revolt failed and he was released from prison in 1955, and he and his brother Raul fled to Mexico, where they met the Argentine doctor and Marxist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara. Together the three planned a trip to Cuba to establish a guerrilla resistance to the Batista dictatorship.&nbsp;</p>

<p>With 81 revolutionaries, they left Mexico on the old yacht, Granma, on November 25, 1956, for the 1,200 mile trip to Cuba. The journey was difficult and they encountered resistance when they landed.&nbsp;Only 19 of them made it alive to the Sierra Maestra, where they began the guerrilla warfare that would lead to the defeat of the Batista regime, which fell on December 1, 1959. Consequently, Batista fled the country with $300,000,000 from the national treasury.</p>

<p>In early 1960, U.S. President Eisenhower, an antagonist to leftist governments in Latin America, authorised the Central Intelligence Agency to carry out operations to overthrow Castro. This led to the U.S. supported Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, which the Cubans defeated. What followed was the U.S. embargo of Cuba and persistent attempts by the United States to overthrow and/or assassinate Castro.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The tacit war with the U.S. forced Castro to ally with the Soviet Union, which at that time had no interest in pursuing popular revolutions around the world. Nonetheless, Castro was dependent on the Soviet Union for support. In 1962, Castro allowed the Soviets to install nuclear missiles in Cuba, in retaliation for the ring of missiles that the U.S. maintained surrounding the Soviet Union. This led to the Cuban missile crisis and a further hardening of relations between Cuba and the United States, and an increased dependency of Cuba on the Soviet Union.</p>

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<p>The author is a proud co-author of the Cuban President, Fidel Castro (Others)</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Abroad, however, Castro supported anti-imperialist revolutions whenever he could, in Chile, Nicaragua, and Grenada in Latin America, and in Africa, particularly in Angola and Mozambique.</p>

<p>Eventually, age forced him to step down from the&nbsp;government, leaving the Cuban Communist Party in power.</p>

<p>Fidel Castro was a major figure of the 20th century who uniquely challenged American hegemony in Latin America, and later, in the world. Any evaluation of him must contain some personal views of that hegemony. As I mentioned, Castro supported the Salvador Allende government in Chile, which the CIA, under Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, set out to destroy, plotting with General Augusto Pinochet to carry out a military coup to overthrow the government. I was in Santiago, Chile when the coup took place, and along with thousands of others, was picked up by the army and tortured. As an American, though, I was released and could escape to the United States, but not without realising the brutality of U.S. imperial designs in Latin America, that same brutality that led Castro to depose Fulgencio Batistas.</p>

<p>Some time later, Belgian scholar put together a volume, Schuldenkrisse, on the then Latin American debt crisis, with chapters by Ernest Mandel, Winfred Wolf, me, and Fidel Castro, so I belatedly became co-author of the Cuban president.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Castro, in my opinion, could have led a life of ease based on family wealth, but instead courageously chose to challenge U.S. imperialism. Once successful, he found himself trapped between the constant attacks, assassination attempts, embargoes, invasions, on the one hand, and his necessary ties to the Stalinist Soviet Union, his only means of survival but with a cost in terms of foreign and domestic policy. Cuba&rsquo;s position as a tiny island dependent on sugar exports, trying to survive in a hostile and difficult world market, limited what his &ldquo;socialist&rdquo; revolution could accomplish. Unlike Allende and other leftists, he survived as a symbol that imperialism was not invincible, perhaps his greatest contribution.</p>

<p>(WION)</p>


The man who co-wrote a book with Fidel Castro analyses his regime for WION

Beginning with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, Spain laid claim to most of the New World, eventually consolidating its rule over much of South, Central, and North America. In the early 19th century, Mexico, Central America and South America acquired independence, leaving Cuba and Puerto Rico as the last of the Spanish colonies in the Americas. They remained Spanish colonies until the United States declared war in 1898. The U.S. victory over Spain made Puerto Rico a U.S. colony to date. The U.S. military occupied Cuba until 1902, only leaving after the Platt Amendment allowed the U.S. to intervene when its interests were threatened. The U.S. reoccupied Cuba 1906-1909 and in 1912 to suppress Afro-Cuban protests against racial discrimination. America owned most of the production of Cuba’s chief export, sugar, most of which was exported to the United States. Supported by the U.S., General Fulgencio Batista came to power in 1940 as president, then in 1952 through a military coup d’etat in which he established himself as a U.S. supported dictator with close ties to the mafia. Castro supported the Salvador Allende government in Chile which the CIA, under Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, set out to destroy × Fidel Castro Ruz was born in 1926, son of a somewhat wealthy Spanish (Galicia) immigrant and owner of a prosperous sugar plantation. As a young man, he studied at a Jesuit-run school, after which his father sent him to the University of Havana to study law, where he became radicalised. In 1948 he travelled to Bogota, Colombia, where he got caught up in the riots protesting the assassination of popular leftist, Jorge Gaitán. Fidel began considering himself a revolutionary socialist, and after recruiting a rebel band among the poor in Santiago, on July 26, 1953, he led an attack on the Moncada army barracks, in an attempt to begin to topple the Batista dictatorship. The revolt failed and he was released from prison in 1955, and he and his brother Raul fled to Mexico, where they met the Argentine doctor and Marxist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara. Together the three planned a trip to Cuba to establish a guerrilla resistance to the Batista dictatorship. With 81 revolutionaries, they left Mexico on the old yacht, Granma, on November 25, 1956, for the 1,200 mile trip to Cuba. The journey was difficult and they encountered resistance when they landed. Only 19 of them made it alive to the Sierra Maestra, where they began the guerrilla warfare that would lead to the defeat of the Batista regime, which fell on December 1, 1959. Consequently, Batista fled the country with $300,000,000 from the national treasury. In early 1960, U.S. President Eisenhower, an antagonist to leftist governments in Latin America, authorised the Central Intelligence Agency to carry out operations to overthrow Castro. This led to the U.S. supported Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, which the Cubans defeated. What followed was the U.S. embargo of Cuba and persistent attempts by the United States to overthrow and/or assassinate Castro. The tacit war with the U.S. forced Castro to ally with the Soviet Union, which at that time had no interest in pursuing popular revolutions around the world. Nonetheless, Castro was dependent on the Soviet Union for support. In 1962, Castro allowed the Soviets to install nuclear missiles in Cuba, in retaliation for the ring of missiles that the U.S. maintained surrounding the Soviet Union. This led to the Cuban missile crisis and a further hardening of relations between Cuba and the United States, and an increased dependency of Cuba on the Soviet Union. The author is a proud co-author of the Cuban President, Fidel Castro (Others) × Abroad, however, Castro supported anti-imperialist revolutions whenever he could, in Chile, Nicaragua, and Grenada in Latin America, and in Africa, particularly in Angola and Mozambique. Eventually, age forced him to step down from the government, leaving the Cuban Communist Party in power. Fidel Castro was a major figure of the 20th century who uniquely challenged American hegemony in Latin America, and later, in the world. Any evaluation of him must contain some personal views of that hegemony. As I mentioned, Castro supported the Salvador Allende government in Chile, which the CIA, under Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, set out to destroy, plotting with General Augusto Pinochet to carry out a military coup to overthrow the government. I was in Santiago, Chile when the coup took place, and along with thousands of others, was picked up by the army and tortured. As an American, though, I was released and could escape to the United States, but not without realising the brutality of U.S. imperial designs in Latin America, that same brutality that led Castro to depose Fulgencio Batistas. Some time later, Belgian scholar put together a volume, Schuldenkrisse, on the then Latin American debt crisis, with chapters by Ernest Mandel, Winfred Wolf, me, and Fidel Castro, so I belatedly became co-author of the Cuban president. Castro, in my opinion, could have led a life of ease based on family wealth, but instead courageously chose to challenge U.S. imperialism. Once successful, he found himself trapped between the constant attacks, assassination attempts, embargoes, invasions, on the one hand, and his necessary ties to the Stalinist Soviet Union, his only means of survival but with a cost in terms of foreign and domestic policy. Cuba’s position as a tiny island dependent on sugar exports, trying to survive in a hostile and difficult world market, limited what his “socialist” revolution could accomplish. Unlike Allende and other leftists, he survived as a symbol that imperialism was not invincible, perhaps his greatest contribution. (WION)

Fidel's greatest contribution was surviving as symbol of anti-imperialism

<p>Donald Trump, the former television celebrity and current Republican Party candidate for the president, as well as Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and current Democratic Party presidential nominee, have made the claim that, if elected, they will implement policies that will improve the lives of working Americans.&nbsp; To see whether either candidate is on the right track to make lives better for average Americans, let&rsquo;s take a look at the last half-century or so of unionisation and wages for average Americans, the two standard benchmarks of working class health.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Without unions, an individual worker is virtually powerless to negotiate with an employer. It is through a union, that a worker can gain both leverage and power. Workers, of course, go to work for a wage, the money is necessary to keep them and their families alive. The historical experience of the United States is that on average, strong unions increase wages and benefits whereas weak&nbsp;or no unions decrease them.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

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<p>The decline of unions is roughly paralleled by the decline and stagnation of wages, bringing down the working class standard of living (Others)</p>
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<p>As in many countries, employers and governments fought early efforts by workers to unionise but the Great Depression of 1929 radically changed the situation. As unemployment reached a third of the workforce and with a dramatic increase in poverty, labour struggles multiplied. Such labour activism was often supported by the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and his brilliant and politically active wife, Eleanor. Unionisation grew through the Depression. &nbsp;</p>

<p>When the Great Depression ended up in World War II, the new extremely tight labor market favoured workers, as millions of men and women went off to war and millions of others got good work in war industries. Therefore, by the 1940s, the rate of unionisation peaked at 35 per cent of the labour force.&nbsp; Beginning in the 1950s, continued attacks by employers, right-wing groups and sometimes less-friendly governments, led to a slow decline in unionisation. Attacks accelerated after the 1973-75 oil crisis and the unionisation rate fell to 20 per cent in 1983, 12 per cent in 2009, and 11 per cent in 2015. This union decline took place under both Republican and Democratic presidents. Today, unions are essentially a negligible economic and political force. &nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

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<p>With strong unions and the buoyant post-war economy, wages and incomes grew steadily through the 1950s, 60s and 70s. (Others)</p>
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<p>&nbsp;The decline of unions is roughly paralleled by the decline and stagnation of wages and the working class standard of living.&nbsp; The labor market is stratified with many different wage levels, so while it&rsquo;s true that incomes have increased for many working people, for the average worker and for those on the bottom, real wages have either declined or stagnated.</p>

<p>&nbsp; With strong unions and the buoyant post-war economy, wages and incomes grew steadily through the 1950s and 1960s. In terms of the value of&nbsp; dollars in 2015, the real minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $ 10.85.&nbsp; It has fallen or stagnated since and today is $7.25. According to the Pew Research Center, the 2014 average hourly wage of $22.41 was the same in real terms as the $4.03-an-hour rate of 1973.&nbsp; No growth at all. The average household today has a net worth 14 per cent below that of 1984, according to the Russell Sage Foundation.&nbsp; Meanwhile, from 1973 to 2013 labour productivity has increased by 73 per cent. Thus, the country got richer but average working families did not.&nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

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<p>While labour productivity has increased over the decades and the country got richer, but average working families did not (Others)</p>
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<p>&nbsp; So, the real question of the labour perspective under Trump or Clinton is whether they can change these long-run and deep-rooted tendencies.</p>

<p>Republicans are traditionally a pro-business anti-labour party, and Trump&rsquo;s presidential platform is typically anti-labour. It endorses an expansion of &ldquo;right-to-work&rdquo; laws, which effectively prevent unions from organising.&nbsp; Many Republicans would like to eliminate the legal minimum wage, and they oppose most regulatory statutes that protect working people. They argue that eliminating them and dropping wages will increase job opportunities, though the evidence from austerity programmes worldwide over the last 20 years provides no support for that.</p>

<p>&nbsp;The Democratic Platform calls for an elimination of &ldquo;right to work&rdquo; laws and therefore an extension of unionisation.&nbsp;It also calls for raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, doubling the current figure.&nbsp; They also support broader protections for working families and unions.</p>

<p>The problem is that both unions and real wages have been undermined for the last forty years under both Republican and Democratic governments.&nbsp; There is no question that a Trump victory would be unfavourable for workers, but there is a question of whether a Clinton victory would help working families or not.&nbsp; Only time will tell.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

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<h5>There is no question that a Trump victory would be unfavourable for workers, but there is a question of whether a Clinton victory would help working families or not.</h5>
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<p>Clinton and Trump differ on other issues that affect working families, but none more central than tax policy.&nbsp; Municipalities, counties, state, and the federal government all require money to operate and, by and large, that money comes from taxes. Governments can tax businesses as well as individuals.&nbsp; Individual taxes can take two forms: progressive and regressive. While the former can make those with higher incomes provide proportionately more taxes, the latter make those with lower incomes provide proportionately more.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The principal progressive tax in the United States is the Federal Income Tax. When implemented in 1913, the tax rate on the highest incomes was only 7 per cent. Governments soon discovered a basic principle of taxation, which is you can&rsquo;t get money from people who does not have money. So, if you want to finance government, you have to tax the wealthy.&nbsp; For that reason, with the Great Depression, Roosevelt brought the top tax rate up to 79 per cent in 1936, and then with World War II, to 94 per cent (it&#39;s expensive to fight wars). The top rate has been declining ever since: 77 per cent in 1964, 38.5 per cent in 1987, and 35 per cent from 2003 to 2012, though currently, under President Obama, it is 39.6 per cent. &nbsp;</p>

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<p>Trump and the Republicans have all promised to cut taxes, claiming that it will help to restore growth and jobs. Though, as with wages, austerity programmes around the world over the last 40 years provide no evidence for this.&nbsp; Cutting taxes on the rich make the rich richer and government poorer.&nbsp; Trump has said he would cut the&nbsp;top individual rate to&nbsp;25 per cent and the top corporate rate&nbsp;to&nbsp;15 per cent while also eliminating the estate tax, a tax that disproportionately affects the wealthy.&nbsp; The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has expressed support for the progressive income tax and the principle that the wealthy should pay a greater per cent of their income in taxes.</p>

<p>The Government has many expenses. So, when taxes on the wealthy are cut, a government must either cut spending which, incidentally, is the favoured position of the Republican programme, or raise regressive taxes, which incommensurably affect the poor.&nbsp; Historically speaking, most spending cuts do disproportionately hurt the poor. This has for long been evident, for instance, when welfare was slashed in the 1980s, or in reduced spending in education, particularly, in Republicans controlled states. The wealthy have the option of sending children to private schools, an option closed to the poor. &nbsp;</p>

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<p>Here are many other policy issues &ndash; health care, education, retirement benefits, social security, climate change &ndash; that affect working people, but unions, wages, and taxes are the most immediate and direct.&nbsp; That said, nobody can predict the future.&nbsp; Future growth rates, technological change, climate change, and the political activities of the working class itself are at least as important, if not more, as government policy.&nbsp; Furthermore, once in office, candidates change as the real world impinges. A candidate may say one thing, but once in power, may do another.&nbsp; Furthermore, and as of this writing, Trump has only a miniscule chance of winning the election after insulting African-Americans, Latinos, immigrants, Muslims, the disabled, women, and many leaders in his own party.</p>

<p>&nbsp;Nonetheless, the problem for the working class remains.&nbsp; After 40 years of declining or stagnating growth rates, declining rates of unionisation, and declining or stagnating real wages, can even a Clinton presidency reverse these trends? &nbsp; There is nothing among her policies to suggest they will.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>


There is no question that a Trump victory would be unfavourable for workers, but will Hillary Clinton's victory help working families?

Donald Trump, the former television celebrity and current Republican Party candidate for the president, as well as Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and current Democratic Party presidential nominee, have made the claim that, if elected, they will implement policies that will improve the lives of working Americans. To see whether either candidate is on the right track to make lives better for average Americans, let’s take a look at the last half-century or so of unionisation and wages for average Americans, the two standard benchmarks of working class health. Without unions, an individual worker is virtually powerless to negotiate with an employer. It is through a union, that a worker can gain both leverage and power. Workers, of course, go to work for a wage, the money is necessary to keep them and their families alive. The historical experience of the United States is that on average, strong unions increase wages and benefits whereas weak or no unions decrease them. The decline of unions is roughly paralleled by the decline and stagnation of wages, bringing down the working class standard of living (Others) × As in many countries, employers and governments fought early efforts by workers to unionise but the Great Depression of 1929 radically changed the situation. As unemployment reached a third of the workforce and with a dramatic increase in poverty, labour struggles multiplied. Such labour activism was often supported by the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and his brilliant and politically active wife, Eleanor. Unionisation grew through the Depression. When the Great Depression ended up in World War II, the new extremely tight labor market favoured workers, as millions of men and women went off to war and millions of others got good work in war industries. Therefore, by the 1940s, the rate of unionisation peaked at 35 per cent of the labour force. Beginning in the 1950s, continued attacks by employers, right-wing groups and sometimes less-friendly governments, led to a slow decline in unionisation. Attacks accelerated after the 1973-75 oil crisis and the unionisation rate fell to 20 per cent in 1983, 12 per cent in 2009, and 11 per cent in 2015. This union decline took place under both Republican and Democratic presidents. Today, unions are essentially a negligible economic and political force. With strong unions and the buoyant post-war economy, wages and incomes grew steadily through the 1950s, 60s and 70s. (Others) × The decline of unions is roughly paralleled by the decline and stagnation of wages and the working class standard of living. The labor market is stratified with many different wage levels, so while it’s true that incomes have increased for many working people, for the average worker and for those on the bottom, real wages have either declined or stagnated. With strong unions and the buoyant post-war economy, wages and incomes grew steadily through the 1950s and 1960s. In terms of the value of dollars in 2015, the real minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $ 10.85. It has fallen or stagnated since and today is $7.25. According to the Pew Research Center, the 2014 average hourly wage of $22.41 was the same in real terms as the $4.03-an-hour rate of 1973. No growth at all. The average household today has a net worth 14 per cent below that of 1984, according to the Russell Sage Foundation. Meanwhile, from 1973 to 2013 labour productivity has increased by 73 per cent. Thus, the country got richer but average working families did not. While labour productivity has increased over the decades and the country got richer, but average working families did not (Others) × So, the real question of the labour perspective under Trump or Clinton is whether they can change these long-run and deep-rooted tendencies. Republicans are traditionally a pro-business anti-labour party, and Trump’s presidential platform is typically anti-labour. It endorses an expansion of “right-to-work” laws, which effectively prevent unions from organising. Many Republicans would like to eliminate the legal minimum wage, and they oppose most regulatory statutes that protect working people. They argue that eliminating them and dropping wages will increase job opportunities, though the evidence from austerity programmes worldwide over the last 20 years provides no support for that. The Democratic Platform calls for an elimination of “right to work” laws and therefore an extension of unionisation. It also calls for raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, doubling the current figure. They also support broader protections for working families and unions. The problem is that both unions and real wages have been undermined for the last forty years under both Republican and Democratic governments. There is no question that a Trump victory would be unfavourable for workers, but there is a question of whether a Clinton victory would help working families or not. Only time will tell. There is no question that a Trump victory would be unfavourable for workers, but there is a question of whether a Clinton victory would help working families or not. × Clinton and Trump differ on other issues that affect working families, but none more central than tax policy. Municipalities, counties, state, and the federal government all require money to operate and, by and large, that money comes from taxes. Governments can tax businesses as well as individuals. Individual taxes can take two forms: progressive and regressive. While the former can make those with higher incomes provide proportionately more taxes, the latter make those with lower incomes provide proportionately more. The principal progressive tax in the United States is the Federal Income Tax. When implemented in 1913, the tax rate on the highest incomes was only 7 per cent. Governments soon discovered a basic principle of taxation, which is you can’t get money from people who does not have money. So, if you want to finance government, you have to tax the wealthy. For that reason, with the Great Depression, Roosevelt brought the top tax rate up to 79 per cent in 1936, and then with World War II, to 94 per cent (it's expensive to fight wars). The top rate has been declining ever since: 77 per cent in 1964, 38.5 per cent in 1987, and 35 per cent from 2003 to 2012, though currently, under President Obama, it is 39.6 per cent. Cutting taxes on the rich make the rich richer and government poorer (Reuters) × Trump and the Republicans have all promised to cut taxes, claiming that it will help to restore growth and jobs. Though, as with wages, austerity programmes around the world over the last 40 years provide no evidence for this. Cutting taxes on the rich make the rich richer and government poorer. Trump has said he would cut the top individual rate to 25 per cent and the top corporate rate to 15 per cent while also eliminating the estate tax, a tax that disproportionately affects the wealthy. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has expressed support for the progressive income tax and the principle that the wealthy should pay a greater per cent of their income in taxes. The Government has many expenses. So, when taxes on the wealthy are cut, a government must either cut spending which, incidentally, is the favoured position of the Republican programme, or raise regressive taxes, which incommensurably affect the poor. Historically speaking, most spending cuts do disproportionately hurt the poor. This has for long been evident, for instance, when welfare was slashed in the 1980s, or in reduced spending in education, particularly, in Republicans controlled states. The wealthy have the option of sending children to private schools, an option closed to the poor. Historically speaking, most spending cuts do disproportionately hurt the poor. × Here are many other policy issues – health care, education, retirement benefits, social security, climate change – that affect working people, but unions, wages, and taxes are the most immediate and direct. That said, nobody can predict the future. Future growth rates, technological change, climate change, and the political activities of the working class itself are at least as important, if not more, as government policy. Furthermore, once in office, candidates change as the real world impinges. A candidate may say one thing, but once in power, may do another. Furthermore, and as of this writing, Trump has only a miniscule chance of winning the election after insulting African-Americans, Latinos, immigrants, Muslims, the disabled, women, and many leaders in his own party. Nonetheless, the problem for the working class remains. After 40 years of declining or stagnating growth rates, declining rates of unionisation, and declining or stagnating real wages, can even a Clinton presidency reverse these trends? There is nothing among her policies to suggest they will.

The 2016 US election: Labour unions and working class wages

<p>&nbsp;The Andes Mountains are the longest mountain range in the world, dominating South America.&nbsp;They continue north through Central America and Mexico to become the Rocky Mountains of the United States and Canada.&nbsp;In South America, the Andes has numerous peaks over 5,000 meters, so it is quite a formidable range.&nbsp;The Republic of Chile is a narrow strip of land from the Andes to the Pacific Ocean, 4,270 km in length but with an average width of only 177 km and relatively isolated from its neighbours by the towering mountains to the east, the dry Atacama desert in the north, and the waters of the Pacific to the south and west.</p>

<p>Because of its unique geography, the territory was sparsely settled before Spanish conquest and colonisation, so that today the population is as much European as indigenous in origin. Copper mining has been a mainstay of the economy and in 1905 the US-owned Anaconda Copper Company came to control most of the production, so that through the course of the 20th century, copper provided the bulk of Chile&rsquo;s exports and Anaconda Copper dominated economy and politics.</p>

<p>&nbsp;With booming copper exports and a relatively small population, Chile enjoyed a generally higher standard of living than its neighbours but still suffered from underdevelopment, lack of industrialisation, low wages, mass poverty, and extreme inequality of wealth and power.&nbsp; A small, mostly white oligarchy retained control of politics.&nbsp;Following a military coup in 1924 and a subsequent return to democracy, Leftist political parties slowly became more popular, in large part influenced by radicalised copper miners and their increasingly militant trade unions.&nbsp;In 1970, a coalition of the Socialist and Communist parties elected Dr Salvador Allende, a physician, to the presidency.</p>

<p>&nbsp;I started graduate study in history at UCLA that same year, with a concentration in Latin American labour history.&nbsp;I passed my Ph.D. exams in May 1973 with a dissertation project on Chile because it seemed to have the most successful labour movement in Latin America, one that had brought a socialist into the presidency.&nbsp; I received a Doherty fellowship to go to Chile for a year for archival research towards the dissertation and arrived in Santiago, the capital, in late August 1973.&nbsp; I had taught myself to read Spanish in graduate school but could hardly speak anything except the rudiments, and certainly didn&rsquo;t know a single person in the country when I arrived.</p>

<p>&nbsp;On the morning of September 11, 1973, I left my apartment and headed downtown for the National Archives, where I was beginning my research on the origins of the Chilean labour movement.&nbsp;On the walk there, I noticed many military tanks on the streets and when I reached the Archives, located across the street from the National Palace, I found it closed for reasons I didn&rsquo;t understand at the moment. &nbsp;</p>

<p>Suddenly, all hell broke loose as the tanks I had seen earlier opened fire on the Palace where President Allende was, military jets flew overhead, and with militants trying to defend the president, the area turned into a war zone.&nbsp; I dived under a car parked on the street in front of the Archives to avoid getting shot, then realised if I stayed there, I&rsquo;d probably die, so I took off running.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>

<p>A full-scale civil war was under way, bullets and rockets were flying about, people all around me were dropping, and it was just random who lived and who died.&nbsp; I made it out of the fire zone and back to my apartment, where my neighbour told me that there was a military coup underway.&nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;I was probably the only person in the entire country unaware of the coup that morning as I had no radio, no television, no friends, hardly any acquaintances.&nbsp; With the news of the military uprising, which I had just witnessed minutes earlier, I was scared and didn&rsquo;t know what to do, so I went to the apartment of an American graduate student I had met in the archives. He spoke English and had been in the country for a year, so I thought I might get some advice. &nbsp;</p>

<p>He told me that there was a 24-hour military curfew, which meant that I was trapped at his place for the time being.&nbsp; And there I was when a few days later there was a loud knock on the door followed by dozens of soldiers pouring into his apartment.&nbsp;They grabbed us, dragged us out to the courtyard of the apartment complex, and immediately began to beat us, stomp on us, cut us with bayonets, pound us with rifle butts, threaten us with machine&nbsp;guns in the ear, occasionally stopping to ask questions.&nbsp; Of course, with my meager Spanish and scared to death, I couldn&rsquo;t understand anything, but they interpreted my silence as resistance and redoubled the beatings. &nbsp;</p>

<p>After some hours of this, they dragged us off to a prisoner bus parked nearby which they were filling with folks mostly in the same condition as us. &nbsp;Just before the bus took off, an officer came up to the two American prisoners, handed us our American passports that they had discovered in the process of tearing up my friend&rsquo;s apartment, apologised and said we could go.&nbsp; From the looks of it, since we were not permitted to talk with the other prisoners, we were the only Americans on the bus, the rest apparently Chileans or Latin Americans.&nbsp; The bus left and to the best of my knowledge, my fellow prisoners were taken off to torture and death.&nbsp;If I had to guess, they didn&rsquo;t want to kill US citizens.</p>

<p>&nbsp;A few days later, the curfew lifted and I went to the U.S. embassy, which then put me on the first embassy-arranged flight out of Chile, a shaky DC-4 flying over the towering Andes to safety in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where after a week in a seedy hotel and without money, I was able to get a flight back to Los Angeles.&nbsp; The torture had taken its toll, I suffered internal injuries and bleeding and needed time to heal, along with the psychological scars.&nbsp; After a couple of months, I regained my health, still needed to write a dissertation and had not spent much of the fellowship money in Chile, so in December I went to Mexico City to see if I could figure out a topic on a country I had never studied and about which I knew nothing.</p>

<p>At the time of the coup and for some time after that, I didn&rsquo;t really understand what had happened in Chile except the basics.&nbsp;The Chilean oligarchy had aligned with the armed forces to tear down, smash democracy and terrorise the civilian population through mass torture and mass murder.&nbsp; Over time, reports began to filter in about U.S. participation in destroying Chile&rsquo;s Constitutional government and the extent and depth of the torture regime that the leader of the coup, General Augusto Pinochet, implemented. &nbsp;</p>

<p>Some years later, in 2007, Naomi Klein published The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, a brilliant volume that for me was an eye opener.&nbsp;It explained how the U.S. orchestrated the rise of neoliberalism and austerity programmes via military coups throughout Latin America:&nbsp;Argentina (1976), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), and Uruguay (1973), along with similar actions around the world. However,&nbsp;I was most interested in the chapter on Chile, the details of which both explained the coup and brought back the horror I had experienced. &nbsp;</p>

<p>Torture was only a tool to subdue the local population, to allow such neoliberal policies as breaking the unions, imposing austerity, carrying out free market reforms which inevitably punished the poor.&nbsp; With U.S. planning and support, the new military governments freely employed torture, murder, and repression as methods to achieve unpopular economic policies.&nbsp; The books strikingly emphasised the role of then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in working with Pinochet to organise the coup.&nbsp; It is a powerful book and given what I lived through, accurate in its account.</p>

<p>&nbsp;Pinochet remained in power until 1990, and though the country eventually returned to democracy, the Socialists, Communists, and trade unions never recovered their influence. Too many people had been tortured and killed.&nbsp; Personally, I had no interest in going back, had fallen in love with Mexico, where I lived and ended up teaching at the university until 1984, when I returned to the U.S. with my Mexican wife. &nbsp;</p>

<p>Chile had taught me that, however, old a democracy may be, when the rich and powerful feel threatened, they will act.&nbsp; It won&rsquo;t be peaceful and it won&rsquo;t be nice. Growing up in the United States simply had not prepared me for the world outside. As it turns out, according to the Shock Doctrine, for the machinations of a government that I thought I knew, but in truth, did not know at all.</p>


The coup in Chile taught me that, however, old a democracy may be, when the rich and powerful feel threatened, they will act.

The Andes Mountains are the longest mountain range in the world, dominating South America. They continue north through Central America and Mexico to become the Rocky Mountains of the United States and Canada. In South America, the Andes has numerous peaks over 5,000 meters, so it is quite a formidable range. The Republic of Chile is a narrow strip of land from the Andes to the Pacific Ocean, 4,270 km in length but with an average width of only 177 km and relatively isolated from its neighbours by the towering mountains to the east, the dry Atacama desert in the north, and the waters of the Pacific to the south and west. Because of its unique geography, the territory was sparsely settled before Spanish conquest and colonisation, so that today the population is as much European as indigenous in origin. Copper mining has been a mainstay of the economy and in 1905 the US-owned Anaconda Copper Company came to control most of the production, so that through the course of the 20th century, copper provided the bulk of Chile’s exports and Anaconda Copper dominated economy and politics. With booming copper exports and a relatively small population, Chile enjoyed a generally higher standard of living than its neighbours but still suffered from underdevelopment, lack of industrialisation, low wages, mass poverty, and extreme inequality of wealth and power. A small, mostly white oligarchy retained control of politics. Following a military coup in 1924 and a subsequent return to democracy, Leftist political parties slowly became more popular, in large part influenced by radicalised copper miners and their increasingly militant trade unions. In 1970, a coalition of the Socialist and Communist parties elected Dr Salvador Allende, a physician, to the presidency. I started graduate study in history at UCLA that same year, with a concentration in Latin American labour history. I passed my Ph.D. exams in May 1973 with a dissertation project on Chile because it seemed to have the most successful labour movement in Latin America, one that had brought a socialist into the presidency. I received a Doherty fellowship to go to Chile for a year for archival research towards the dissertation and arrived in Santiago, the capital, in late August 1973. I had taught myself to read Spanish in graduate school but could hardly speak anything except the rudiments, and certainly didn’t know a single person in the country when I arrived. On the morning of September 11, 1973, I left my apartment and headed downtown for the National Archives, where I was beginning my research on the origins of the Chilean labour movement. On the walk there, I noticed many military tanks on the streets and when I reached the Archives, located across the street from the National Palace, I found it closed for reasons I didn’t understand at the moment. Suddenly, all hell broke loose as the tanks I had seen earlier opened fire on the Palace where President Allende was, military jets flew overhead, and with militants trying to defend the president, the area turned into a war zone. I dived under a car parked on the street in front of the Archives to avoid getting shot, then realised if I stayed there, I’d probably die, so I took off running. A full-scale civil war was under way, bullets and rockets were flying about, people all around me were dropping, and it was just random who lived and who died. I made it out of the fire zone and back to my apartment, where my neighbour told me that there was a military coup underway. I was probably the only person in the entire country unaware of the coup that morning as I had no radio, no television, no friends, hardly any acquaintances. With the news of the military uprising, which I had just witnessed minutes earlier, I was scared and didn’t know what to do, so I went to the apartment of an American graduate student I had met in the archives. He spoke English and had been in the country for a year, so I thought I might get some advice. He told me that there was a 24-hour military curfew, which meant that I was trapped at his place for the time being. And there I was when a few days later there was a loud knock on the door followed by dozens of soldiers pouring into his apartment. They grabbed us, dragged us out to the courtyard of the apartment complex, and immediately began to beat us, stomp on us, cut us with bayonets, pound us with rifle butts, threaten us with machine guns in the ear, occasionally stopping to ask questions. Of course, with my meager Spanish and scared to death, I couldn’t understand anything, but they interpreted my silence as resistance and redoubled the beatings. After some hours of this, they dragged us off to a prisoner bus parked nearby which they were filling with folks mostly in the same condition as us. Just before the bus took off, an officer came up to the two American prisoners, handed us our American passports that they had discovered in the process of tearing up my friend’s apartment, apologised and said we could go. From the looks of it, since we were not permitted to talk with the other prisoners, we were the only Americans on the bus, the rest apparently Chileans or Latin Americans. The bus left and to the best of my knowledge, my fellow prisoners were taken off to torture and death. If I had to guess, they didn’t want to kill US citizens. A few days later, the curfew lifted and I went to the U.S. embassy, which then put me on the first embassy-arranged flight out of Chile, a shaky DC-4 flying over the towering Andes to safety in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where after a week in a seedy hotel and without money, I was able to get a flight back to Los Angeles. The torture had taken its toll, I suffered internal injuries and bleeding and needed time to heal, along with the psychological scars. After a couple of months, I regained my health, still needed to write a dissertation and had not spent much of the fellowship money in Chile, so in December I went to Mexico City to see if I could figure out a topic on a country I had never studied and about which I knew nothing. At the time of the coup and for some time after that, I didn’t really understand what had happened in Chile except the basics. The Chilean oligarchy had aligned with the armed forces to tear down, smash democracy and terrorise the civilian population through mass torture and mass murder. Over time, reports began to filter in about U.S. participation in destroying Chile’s Constitutional government and the extent and depth of the torture regime that the leader of the coup, General Augusto Pinochet, implemented. Some years later, in 2007, Naomi Klein published The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, a brilliant volume that for me was an eye opener. It explained how the U.S. orchestrated the rise of neoliberalism and austerity programmes via military coups throughout Latin America: Argentina (1976), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), and Uruguay (1973), along with similar actions around the world. However, I was most interested in the chapter on Chile, the details of which both explained the coup and brought back the horror I had experienced. Torture was only a tool to subdue the local population, to allow such neoliberal policies as breaking the unions, imposing austerity, carrying out free market reforms which inevitably punished the poor. With U.S. planning and support, the new military governments freely employed torture, murder, and repression as methods to achieve unpopular economic policies. The books strikingly emphasised the role of then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in working with Pinochet to organise the coup. It is a powerful book and given what I lived through, accurate in its account. Pinochet remained in power until 1990, and though the country eventually returned to democracy, the Socialists, Communists, and trade unions never recovered their influence. Too many people had been tortured and killed. Personally, I had no interest in going back, had fallen in love with Mexico, where I lived and ended up teaching at the university until 1984, when I returned to the U.S. with my Mexican wife. Chile had taught me that, however, old a democracy may be, when the rich and powerful feel threatened, they will act. It won’t be peaceful and it won’t be nice. Growing up in the United States simply had not prepared me for the world outside. As it turns out, according to the Shock Doctrine, for the machinations of a government that I thought I knew, but in truth, did not know at all.

September 11 in Chile: A personal account of torture and mass murder

Author

Zee News Rajasthan

Editor

Jeffrey Bortz

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